Cinerary Urn, Applegarth

A large collared cinerary urn. The base has been lost. The urn has been decorated with a pattern of incised lines forming a triangular pattern below the rim. There is no other decoration. This urn was found with 1960.103.4 inside.   Unlike neolithic people who usually buried their dead communally in chambered tombs, Bronze Age people preferred to bury their dead singly. During the early part of the period people were usually buried in a crouched position in stone cists, but later cremation was preferred with the remains interred in urns like these. They created cemeteries by burying several urns at one site, sometimes marking it with a cairn or mound of earth and stones. The urns were often buried upside down. They were decorated with twisted cord or string impressions and incised and impressed oval, circular and diamond shapes.